Chilling on Allapey Backwaters + nightmare journey part 27-29th December 2010

Found a great hotel in Allapey with friendly staff and good food. The town itself was pretty uninspiring very busy with traffic and the food I ate on the first evening was pretty terrible too, there seemed to be a lack of decent restaurants in town.

I spent the first afternoon there looking into boat trips. Kerala is famous for its backwaters a series of palm lines lagoons and rivers running down the coast. It became clear pretty quickly that I was there at the wrong time of year. My initial plan had been to do an overnight trip on a houseboat but with the holiday season prices had sky rocketed, with a 24 hour trip costing around £140 pounds……well out of my price range obviously + not great value for money for that length of time. Instead I booked a day trip on a canoe with a guide along with a French Canadian guy I met in the hotel….

That evening was pretty chilled watched the South Africa V India test match along with the hotel staff and went to be early after having my first hot shower in almost a month!

Next morning we started earl and got a ferry from town for an hour through the backwaters to our guides village. We were joined by a Scottish and Dutch guy. Our guide was in his early sixties and a bit crazy, had a fondness for eccentric headgear and reminded me a a bit of an Indian Tommy Cooper. (see photo) . We ate breakfast at his house while he told us of the greatness of the local naturally made coconut beer, he seemed to have taken for granted the fact that we would be buying a bottle during the day.

We set out on the canoe around 10 and spent a very relaxed four or five hours cruising through narrow canals sided by rice paddies and palm trees. We paced through many small villages along the way, life here seemed very simple and relaxed, a world away from the traffic back in town. Was actually glad I hadn’t booked a house boat at this point as the canoe offered a much more intimate experience ( see photos for an idea ) .

In the afternoon we arrived back at our guides house and had lunch along with the coconut beer we had chipped in to buy along the way. Our guide drank most of it but in fairness it tasted like bounty flavoured paint thinner …so he was welcome to it .

In the afternoon went for a walk through the village and rice fields….realised at this point I had done far too little nature viewing on this trip….will have to make up for that in the far east!

Got the ferry back toward town and then had to get a local bus for the second half of the journey. By the time we got back to town was hot and tired. Went for a few cold beers in the local bar with the French Canadian guy and had a good chat about politics.

After that went back to the hotel and had dinner in front of Spurs v Newcastle live, which I stumbled upon while flicking channels. What a result ( ha ha Ben BTW). Slept soundly that evening and awoke to another hot shower!

That morning I went into town to try book a bus to the former French colony of Pondicherry on the East coast of India where I planned to spend New Years eve.

After checking around for a couple of hours it seemed all the busses were full, I decided to try my luck in the next major town to the south Kollam, and if not there in Trivandrum a city even further south where I knew there was at least one government bus a day to Pondicherry….big mistake turned out I had totally underestimated how booked out transport get during Indian holidays…..( makes sense though when y9ou consider how many people live here).

I took the bumper bus ( or “super-fast” to give it its official name , “super-painful” more like) down to Kollam, no luck there was told to go on to Trivandrum. Another 2 hours later I arrived at Trivandrum train/bus station hot and tired having just got a good kicking from the bus…..things were about to get worse…. The government bus had been booked out for weeks and wasn’t free until the fourth of Jan, there were no private bus available and the only train going towards Pondicherry was at 3.;45 in a the morning with no seats available ( ie standing sitting on the floor near the toilet blocks ) …….Arrrghhhhh decided this was my lowest point in India…the traffic was doing my head in. I decided to go for the 3.45 standing train option and hope I would be able to sit for part of the journey ( the full trip was 14 hours ). I booked a room in the train station retiring rooms ( actually really nice with ac and clean common bathrooms ) which at least offered me some peace and a place to crash for a few hours. I ate showered and went to be about 9 managed to sleep till 3 and woke up feeling pretty refreshed….”

“its not so bad I thought”…..how wrong I was…….I had been told by enquiries the previous night the train was at 3.45am so I got on the train leaving at that time and managed to find a seat straight away …..but something didn’t seem right….I realised after a while the final destination was in the wrong direction….fuck….no staff on the platform to ask so had to run all the way back to enquiries where I was told my train was actually on platform 3 not 4 and was about to go….legged it over there and there was no train in sight…..bollocks!

Went to the station masters office where I actually got some reliable but disappointing information. The train I wanted actually left at 3.35 not 3.45, for some reason it had not been listed on the departures board and in any case I was told the wrong time to begin with. The next train I needed was at 4.20pm …12 hours away …gutted …gutted …gutted…….felt so angry I was numb to the world. This would mean doing the 14 hour standing ride overnight and would mean sleep depravation also I wouldn’t get to Pondicherry till the morning of new years eve…..

Kerala was beginning to turn into a nightmare…took ages to get here in the first place and since Kochi nothing had gone to plan…..to use an Indian phrase it was “fucking with my happiness” ….I debated going straight to Madras that morning and then trying to head back down to Pondicherry that evening but the only way to do it would be to get a 5am train to Madras that wouldn’t get in until 11.30pm…….

Luckily I still had my room in the station so went back to try sleep for as long as possible finding it hard to believe how bad my luck had been in the last week…..Had such an amazing time in Goa maybe its just the universe balancing itself out again……

Didn’t really sleep much as I had gone to bed so early the night before + I was thinking how much I would like to throttle the staff on the enquiry desk. Next morn/early aft chilled out and prepared my self for possibly the toughest transit journey of my entire travel career…….Pondicherry better be good...........

The long trip down to, and xmas in, Fort Kochin 23rd -26th December 2010

My original bus ticket to Mangalore was at a discounted rate for a seat in the drivers cabin. However when I turned up at the bus stand with my booking agent he was told that I couldn’t travel in the cabin as I was a foreigner…….I had just spent all morning negotiating with various touts and booking agents in town to get this ticket as all the trains and nearly all busses were full for the xmas period . In order to be in Fort Kochin by x-mas morning ( and not sat on a bus after a sleepless night ) this ticket was my last chance, so I wasn’t best pleased with the mix up….after 20minutes of phone calls and further negotiations I was told there was a spot on another bus leaving that afternoon but I would have to pay full price and get to a different part of the city in order to catch it. I reluctantly agreed, forked over the extra rupees and was then taken on the train by one of the tour agents to a local station 20minutes away. I was then told it was a ten minute walk to the bus stop…this involved walking across the railway tracks and then through a slum area ( pretty interesting). Got t o pick up point easily enough but then ended up waiting for 3 hours for the bus to arrive in the heat. Was getting more and more tired by the minute after little sleep the previous eve. I was convinced at one point it wasn’t coming and all was lost, just as I had began to psyche myself up to another night in the salvation army hostel the bus appeared…it wasn’t quite the luxury ac sleeper bus I had been promised but by this point I didn’t care and just wanted to crash…That I did, and woke up 3 hours or so later to find myself in Pune…“Pune again WTF??” “ Good lord please tell me I’m not gonna get stuck here again!” Luckily it was just a quick stop on the way south and I managed to sleep for most of the night in moderate comfort with the aid of diazepam (despite the dude next to be constantly encroaching on my space in true sub-continental fashion….)

The next morning I awoke to some spectacular rural scenery, Coconut Palms, rice paddies and lush waterways….. in fairness much nicer than Goa…after an hour or so I reached Mangalore and got a rickshaw to the government bus stand . The last afternoon bus to Kochi had already left…I had missed it by an hour thanks to the delay in Mumbai the day before…..ahhh fuck man ..I felt like ripping my hair out…

I was told by the very unhelpful information officer that I could catch a government run bus to Kochi if I went to a neighbouring town called Kasaragod. I got the local bus there for 1.5hours only to find that the only connecting bus to Kochi left at 6 in the evening…this meant that I had six hours to kill and would have to catch a another night bus that evening , meaning I wouldn’t be waking up in a bed on xmas morning as I had hoped…..not a happy camper at this point ….

I spent a couple of hours in the bus station catching up on some long overdue blogs while being studied by a gang of local on lookers.......at 4ish I went to the bus conductors office to enquire about the bus and was invited to wait in their office where I chatted with a couple of the inspectors…both friendly guys who’s job seemed to consist of sitting around reading the paper and every now and then wandering around the bus station to make themselves look a bit busy…when one asked me why I wasn’t going to Goa for xmas I told him I had already been and there were too many white people…they found this hilarious and afterwards made it their personal duty to get me on the bus to kochi ..they phoned ahead for updates on its arrival and then escorted me personally onto the bus…..in fairness the six hours passed really quickly the inspectors were pretty hilarious….

The local bus was a cheap ticket but was designed sometime in the 1970’s by my reckoning …It had little if any suspension and seemed to have hard metal surfaces everywhere waiting for you body to collide into….this was my 3rd night in a row spent on the road and having caught a night bus like this on my last trip to India I knew my body was in for a battering. I prepared for the worst….For the first couple of hours had a triple bench to myself…not too uncomfortable even though every slight pothole in the road would make your body leap from the seat and land back down again painfully….I was then joined on the bench by a rather large fellow…still enough room for both of us though…2 hours later disaster struck as another fat guy joined us meaning I was pressed tightly into one corner against a metal hand rest….looking round I couldn’t believe my bad luck…the only two over weight people on the bus, and there both sat on the same bench next to me!! ….needless to say no sleep was had that night, and by the time I reached Kochi at 5am on xmas day I felt like my kidneys had been used as punching bags all night…..

Was relieved to get off the bus though …I had to negotiate a few more city busses to get to the area of the town I wanted to stay in……The city hadn’t woken yet and the xmas decorations on local houses and churches gave me some comfort….It felt like Christmas alright …so glad I didn’t stay in Goa …..

At 7am I found a decent room in a home stay next to the town basilica a few streets back from the sea…..crashed out until midday then forced myself to get up. Had a Christmas shave and went out to town ……My body felt destroyed from the previous three night’s cramped conditions, but I also felt a decent amount of satisfaction that I had made it in time for Christmas despite all the set backs …Looking round the area of Fort Kochin was the perfect place to spend it…an old portugese/dutch trading colony the streets were very quiet with lots of bright Indian style xmas decorations and mostly families on holiday visiting rather that drunken extroverts……

I spent the afternoon by the sea shore watching a large group of Indian holiday makers playing chicken with the waves in the harbour…( see photo)

The harbour incidentally was not quite as picturesque as I though it might be the oil refineries on the opposite side of the water made me make a mental note to avoid any fish that might have come from the famous Chinese fishing nets set along the sea wall……

I had a nap in the after noon and then went out to eat a solitary Christmas curry…met a cool German guy called Lucas in the restaurant who was also gonna be dining alone. We ate together and then went for a few drinks and talked about party/festival organisation ( he was a DJ who organised events in Germany )…….I headed to bed around midnight totally exhausted but feeling like I had had a good Christmas day …(my first alone outside of my home countries and first in warm conditions).

The next morning I woke with a mild fever and stomach problems….think I must have ate something bad during the night bus marathon. This in combination with my still pain riddled body meant I wasn’t I much of a mood to do anything….I managed to eat a bit eventually and then spent an hour or so in an internet café before having to head back to the hotel and its lavatory facilities…….Spent the whole afternoon and evening suffering from the fever and trying to sleep it off…that evening felt well enough to go watch a really cool Sitar and Tabla concert at the local cultural centre and then eat a light dinner…

Crashed early again and felt marginally better the next morn…fever gone but stomach still not right…in fairness I had been pretty lucky on that front so far this trip to India so couldn’t really complain too much…after a few hours I caught another local “bumper bus” (thankfully only for 2 hours this time) south to the small town of Allapy, where I would seek a boat ride on the famous Keralan Backwaters….

I went through hell to get to Kochin but I think it was worth it, Although a tourist town it still maintained its colonial charm and the Christian decorations made it feel properly like xmas…..there wasn’t a great deal to do there but it would have been an awesome place to relax for a couple of days if I hadn’t got ill again halfway through….but as many a local has told me over the last six weeks “ these things happen this is India!”……

Palolem beach Goa 15th- 22nd December 2010.

The semi sleeper bus to Goa was pretty decent and the Bollywood movie they showed was actually very enjoyable even though the sub titles were intermittent. After getting to the southern city of Margao we got a local bus further south for 1.5 hours to Palolem beach. Palolem is one of the most southerly and under developed beaches in the state. Although still relatively underdeveloped upon arrival the place had changed a lot since I was there in 2000. There were 5 times as many shops, beach huts, and restaurant s there as well as 5 times as many western travellers and plenty of families on holiday. Still the beach was still just as beautiful and pretty chilled even with constant enquiries from locals selling jewellery and sarongs amount other things…..

We checked into a local guest house that was just off the beach and very quiet. By the looks at some of the ramshackle beach huts that’s had popped up everywhere in the last decade it probably one of the nicest places to stay in the area. Headed straight down to the beach and dipped my feet in the water ..felt instant relief and calmness felt like id been trapped on the skeleton coast and just managed to find my way to water …was gonna enjoy winding down over the next 7 days. ( see photo). One point of interest here was the amount of locals I saw playing football on the beach and wearing European club football shirts….another change in India over the last decade…last time I was in Palolem it was only cricket being played on the beach.

With Kate and Nina usually off doing there own thing I spent most of the week hanging
with Kaveri and we became very close friends….he whole week basically consisted of getting up at noon, eating breakfast, swimming and lying on the beach then having dinner and a beer in the evening…..by the end of the week felt as clean as I ever have in my life…really enjoyed being able to wear flip flops all week in stead of past their wash date socks and shoes . The only minor annoyance/gripe I had that week was the amount of western partiers hanging around …the place really had the feel of a Mediterranean party beach at times rather than the local charm it displayed a decade earlier…..my whole Idea for coming to Goa for Xmas was to see Indians celebrating in festival style……the sight of 20 aussies in Santa suits eating an Xmas dinner one night convinced me I wasn’t going to find that in Palolem…..I decided I would head south to Kerala for Xmas instead as there was still a big Christian population there and it seemed to promise a more rustic charm….

First I offered to take Kaveri back up to Mumbai on an overnight bus before heading south again on my own . Its pretty common for attractive and modern Indian girls to be hassled and even groped by men when travelling alone so I did the proper thing and escorted her back home. After saying goodbye to Kate and Nina. We got the bus back to Mumbai where I said goodbye to Kaveri after making plans to meet up in the UK when she comes there to Uni next summer. Will really miss her company…. have never meet someone I have so much in common with and get on with so well, will be looking forward to meeting up in the summer for sure!

I then found another night bus heading south to Mangalore from Mumbai in the afternoon…my plan was to get a connecting bus from Mangalore the next day to the old Portuguese town of Kochi in southern Kerala in order to reach on Xmas eve …turned out to be the start of a journey of epic frustrations……..more on this soon….

Over all Goa was a great and very memorable time, without going into detail I can say it was one of the best weeks of my life and the perfect recovery period from the previous 5 weeks of Indian hustle and bustle. Left the beach feeling totally refreshed mentally, and ready for the last week and a half on the subcontinent…..lets see what other adventures India has left in it before I head to Taiwan and semi normality……

Mumbai again, Pune nightmare trip + return to Mumbai 3rd -14th December 2010

The sleeper train from Udaipur to Mumbai went smoothly enough with the help of some store bought Valium , ( you can buy just about anything at Indian pharmacies without a prescription) and some decent conversation with some Dutch girls sharing the same berths as me who were doing the same trip as me but in reverse. Got some interesting tips off them for the Chinese leg of the trip.

Got into to Mumbai in the morning and headed back to the salvation army hostel to take a dorm room for a couple of nights. I then booked a train ticket to the far south of India ( 26 hours in total travel time) a couple of days later. My plan was to spend a couple of days doing extra work on Bollywood sets and try meet up with my Indian friend Bhavana who I had met in Turkey over the summer before heading south to Kerala and working my way back north to Goa for X-mas……things didn’t quite turn out that way.

The first night I was in town I decided I was feeling well enough to go for a few beers and hit the local sports bar in Colaba. First people I met at the bar were two Indian English brothers from Canterbury. Hung out with them for the rest of the evening , was hilarious seeing the locals reaction to them and their British Drinking habits. We tried to get into a local nightclub that wanted to charge us 1500 rupees to get in (about 20quid,) told them to forget it and went to another local bar to finish the night off along with a South African dude we had met. At the end of the night the others went home and I ( being in crissy good-o mood) decided to stay out for another drink got chatting to a couple of girls from Mumbai and ended up going to a night club with them along with some English friends called Kate and Nina. In fact we went to the same night club that I had tried to get into earlier with the guys from Canterbury. The cover charge was reduced to a fraction of the price when I was with locals ( typical ) Got on really well with one of the Indian girls called Kaveri she was a law student who had travelled the world quite a lot with her family and I seemed to have tonnes in common with her. We made plans to meet up again the following night and check out a club night at another Mumbai night spot.

Spent the following day chatting with other travellers in the hostels that now seemed to be full of English people heading to Goa for x-mas. That evening met Kaveri in a local bar and we went to a club nearby called the Blue Frog. Was as good as any night clubs ive been to anywhere in the world. There was an English DJ called Simon Beckford. Playing along with the local psytrance D.J. who was excellent. The night wasn’t cheap though 15quid entry and uk prices for beer, however worth it just for the experience, turned into a great night.

Was having such a great time hanging out with Kaveri decided to stay on in Mumbai for a few days and eventually we ended up booking tickets to go down to Goa for a week with the English girls. Spent the next few days hanging out with her and exploring areas of Mumbai that I would have never seen if I didn’t have a local companion. The Bandra area of the city is pretty happening with a good arts and music scene and a cool sea front view. ( see photo) Mumbai truly is a city of contradictions, some areas extremely poor others extremely modern and developed. It is a good analogy for the modern India and spending extra time there really seemed to illustrate the amount of development that has taken place in India in the last 10 years. Unfortunately it seems that the gap between the rich and poor has also increased just as much as the counties economic growth.. Met some really cool people through Kaveri during the rest of the week and hanging out with an Indian definitely helped to keep costs to a minimum ( e.g. locally priced cabs/ rickshaws). Went back to her house for dinner one night and met her parents ( also both lawyers ) who cooked me a great south Indian meal and had plenty of travel stories from when they were younger + some good tips for me in India. The week was really fun but was basically living like back home , caught a few movies ( bizarre they still have intervals in India and often stand for the national anthem before the show starts) and ate good food at various local restaurants. Felt pretty healthy at the end the week but my budget was in tatters…..

A couple of days before we were due to head down to Goa I heard about an Indian music festival in the nearby city of Pune and decided to go check it out on my own for a couple of days…Along with a bill consisting of Indian Rock and Metal bands some western bands were playing ( magic Numbers/ Asian Dub Foundation ).

The festival was in the Korregan park area of the city that is famous for its yoga retreats. Unfortunately upon arriving after dark I found that pretty much every cheap guest house in the area was booked out and ended up driving around for 2 hours with a rickshaw driver looking for various forms of accommodation. The worst of which I saw was some student accommodation that had a room in a shared flats with a blood stained mattress for 500 rupees a night ( “no thanks clart ill pass on that” ) I ended up checking into a very nice but well over budget hotel near the train station at 900 rupees a night. Was pissed of that I had to spend so much money but the room was clean and had a TV with espn showing premiership games ( some consolation) . That evening I felt physically exhausted and pissed off esp. as all of Pune resembled a giant traffic jam. I did manage to find a local bar/restaurant that had excellent Indian food and really cheap whisky. For around 3 pounds got a curry with 2 chapattis and a cheese pokara with unlimited finger snacks + peanuts to start and a triple whisky and coke…felt so much better after…left a generous tip and went back to the hotel to chill….watched Bolton v Blackburn on espn and ate some Bang cookies from Jaisalmer…slept like a log in a comfy bed .

The next day I got up early to try and find the festival and get a ticket. The directions on the website were typically vague and I ended up getting a rickshaw back to koregon park where no one seemed to be aware of the event. Everyone wanted to point me in the direction of the local Osho ashram ( details on wiki) where many westerners go to practice Yoga and free love…you can see a lot of them walking around the area in red dressing gowns….

“Nah fuck that new age shit man, I just want to see some Indian death metal bands and rock out”

I eventually ran into someone who worked at the festival and was told I could buy tickets from the local hard rock café…no one seemed to know where this was either….after another hour of walking through permanent grid lock with the constant sound of car horns in the air I had had enough, it was around 4pm and my distain seemed to be focused solely on the western new agers walking round in imperial guard uniform, (for no reason other than they seemed really pretentious to me at the time, probably an unfair assessment born out of frustration)…at 750 rupee a ticket for the day and with only half a day left of the festival by that point decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and got a cab back to my hotel with my tail between my legs…..ah well at least I got to watch Spurs v Chelsea on TV that night after another excellent meal at the same bar as the previous evening and a couple of Rajiput cookies for desert to ease the digestion….the next day ended up getting a chicken bus back to the outskirts of Mumbai and then had a nightmare trip back into Colaba on the local trains.

Trying to board an busy Indian train with a backpack as well as British manners and health and safety awareness is hard, the locals simply push in both directions rugby scrum style while shouting at the top of their lungs, with many people jumping on and off while the train is moving . It took me 3 trains before I managed to get on…. ( for those of you who know the Manmud station- “leap of faith/madman in a dress” story from my India 2000 trip, I can assure you my train jumping days are over )

Spent one more night in the salivation army hostel, ( which was now occupied by a different set of pasty British travellers sitting around in their pants to avoid the heat while waiting for trains south to Goa ). After hanging around with some really cool Indians all week was somehow getting sick of talking to other travellers and the toilets in the place were a disgrace, was happy to be seeing the back of it. Checked out in the morning and then spent the afternoon chilling in the local park watching local cricket matches and talking to some college students who had bunked lessons for the day. ( see photo) That evening got the night bus with Kaveri and the rest of the gang to Goa.

So Mumbai my pit stop tuned into an extended visit, largely thanks to hanging out with one of the coolest people I’ve ever met and getting a great local insight into the city…didn’t end up meeting with my friend Bhavna in the end ( who was on the road herself ) or working on Bollywood again. At times the Mumbai hustle and bustle was hard to take…all and all a good section of the trip, though was definitely ready to chill in Goa and do nothing on a beach all day but swim and get some sun on my skin…we headed to the southern beach of Palolem where I had spent some time 10 years ago with Balloon city Rob…will be interesting to see how much its changed………

Udaipur 1st-2nd December 2010.

The night bus sleeper compartment was pretty dire, nice to have your own space but was bumpy as hell…got thrown all over the place all night and hardly slept. Got into town at 6am and teamed up with an Argentinean guy and Brazilian girl from the bus to find cheap rooms….we got a rickshaw to the Lal Ghat area of town and proceeded to look at about 6-7 different hotels before we found one that was suitable. While walking around got a chance to take in the beauty of Udaipur’s setting. Ringed by green hills the city is built around a still lake that is flanked by Ghats, temples and Palaces. A stunning setting!

After checking in, had my first hot shower in 3 weeks…amazing! Then chilled out for a while before exploring the town…. To be fair there wasn’t that much to do in town with the main attraction being the lake shores, City Palace and Lake View Island Hotel. ( The Bond movie Octopussy was set in Udaipur) . The city palace was awesome lots of amazing glass inlay work and a great view from the top. Spent a few hours there enjoying the sunshine before my cold started to bother me again. Had an early dinner that night and then retired to my hotel room and dose up on paracetomol before catching up on the sleep I had missed out on the previous nights rollercoaster on wheels.

Things didn’t quite go to plan….the house hold next to the hotel were testing there PA system for a wedding the following day until around 11pm. It was while the music was blasting into my room that I realised the poster on the wall opposite my bed was actually covering a hole in the wall Shaw shank redemption style…not great…still managed to doze through the worst of the noise and then slept soundly after it had finished….

The next morning I slept in until around midday and had a slow start to the afternoon….felt a lot better. I spent the afternoon reading in a café near the lake shore and enjoying more sunshine (even more enjoyable as I had just checked the Uk weather forecast …looks damn cold…..think I got a bit sunburnt today ha-ha). That evening I walked for about an hour to the sunset point on a hill above the Palace and lake…the views were incredible ( see photos ) spent about 2 hours on the top feeling very philosophical as the sun slowly set behind the hills casting magnificent colours across the lake.

On the way back to town splashed out on a good meal in a pricy restaurant and spent nearly my daily budget on food ( has to be done sometimes when your felling ill). That evening I jumped on a night train to Mumbai. Had got lucky and got the last tourist quota ticket going but had to leave a day earlier than I planned as there was no train on Fridays…

Overall Udaipur was awesome , short but sweet the view from the sunset point was the best I’ve seen in India…felt pretty rough for the 2 days I was there but managed t o nurse myself back to health pretty quickly and felt relatively good by the time I left ……wish I had an extra day to climb some more hills, but am close to having just one month left in India and want to get down south asap…..first a quick pit stop back in Mumbai though…..

Jaisalmer 24th-30th November 2010

Ended up getting a private bus to Jaisalmer from Jodhpur. Not a great idea, the private bus stand cost more to get to, and when I went to buy a ticket the guy working there was doing opium behind the counter….not confidence inspiring, The bus itself was crowded and my seat was above the wheel arch meaning a lack of leg room. Once we were out of the city the countryside became more and more sparse until we were in semi desert. After 5 hours we got to Jaisalmer and I met a man about a hotel that I had organised to look at back in Jodhpur, so as to get a free ride into town from the bus station.

Ended up in the back of a jeep with an English girl who was going to the same place. The rooms themselves were nice and the owner offered me a cheap price for the room…said I would think about it and had a drink in the roof restaurant with the English girl…It didn’t take long for the owner to start hassling us about a camel safari….I made it pretty clear that I was planning to stay in town for a few days before booking anything…he seemed put out, then he started coming on to the girl very aggressively and seemed to get annoyed when I talked to her…..she wasn’t having any of his advances and when she was out of the room for a minute the guy told me that he had another room I could look at next door , I agreed to have a look but as soon as I was out of the building I was handed my luggage and basically told to fuck off….”what about the room you showed me for 150 rupees?” I asked….what room?” came the reply, “this is impossible the room doesn’t exist!”

I got pissed off at this, not so much for being kicked out of the hotel ( I had pretty much decided I didn’t want to stay there more than a night by this point) but because they had wasted half an hour of my time. Ended up shouting at the luggage lackey who show me out….In fairness he did apologise straight away. ( I ran into the English girl the next day and said it was pretty clear why the dude had got rid of me, she had ended up staying elsewhere too). This dude was one of the sleaziest people I had me so far in India…however I was soon to meet the coolest hotel manager in India at the rather strangely titled “Hotel Swastika” down the road…… ( historical note the Swastika is originally an Indian symbol meaning peace and representing the universe, The mirror image of the Indian Swastika was adopted by Hitler as the Nazi party symbol in the 1930’s and the image has since got a bad wrap , its really common to see Swastikas on signs all over India)

After checking a few places who had cheap rooms but seemed just as likely to try pressure me into their Camel safari I met an middle age guy called Adi who ran the hotel swastika, instantly seemed like a trust worthy character as he was chilled and didn’t mention camel safaris. Ended up paying a bit extra to get a clean and quiet room there, the perfect place to recover fully from whatever had been making me ill in Jodhpur.

That night I went up into town and found a restaurant to eat in, when the food came it was exceptional. Had an egg curry and a dhal fry that were easily as good as those in the “cinnamon tree” ( Cardiff curry house ) for a fraction of the price about 3 pounds in total. Seeing that I was running out of Jappatis the waiter asked if I wanted some more, I told him I had no more money on me and he insisted on throwing in a couple for free…when my bill came they had also given me a 20 percent discount ( I guess they thought I must be really struggling for money ) …awesome really kind of them, would go back again on many occasions to eat over the next week and every time they would give me a further discount to get me to come back….No complaints there the food was awesome….like the way this “backshish” thing works…..That evening I would spend some time exploring the city fort ( a quarter of the city population still lives inside) and then go to the government Bhang Lassie shop for a pre bed drink….slept like a log that night for the first time in 2 weeks…

Next day I went back up to the fort to do some more exploring, was chilling by a pretty impressive viewpoint and recording some local musicians, when I heard someone call my name…it was Tom the guitarist I had met In jodhpur who was sitting in a rooftop restaurant across the way. Joined him for a bit and ended up hanging out for the rest of the week and booking a camel safari together through the hotel swastika….

The next couple of days were very relaxed spent the daytime wandering in the fort and by the chilled lake ( see photos), and the evenings eating out before hitting the lassie shop. All the hotels in town locked up at 11pm so spent most of the nights messing around with the music apps on my I-pod. Jaisalmer is a really cool town, quiet and picturesque after a few days of chilling out made a full recovery to health.

The day before the camel safari met another English guy in the hotel called Steve and went on a tour of some local Jain temples along with Tom ( who was now also staying in the Swastika). The temples were pretty cool always think the design on Jain temples is the more interesting than Hindu or Moslem ones ( See wiki under Jainism if you don’t know who Jain was ). That evening ate and then went to a place called the artists lodge to see some local Rajiput musicians playing, was pretty cool but felt a bit awkward when I was pulled up onto the dance floor by the locals to join in some dancing…hmm haven’t got the Hindi dance style down at all….., gonna have to improve if im gonna make it big in Bollywood!

The camel safari was booked over 2 days, with an evening sleeping under the stars in between at the Sam sand dunes. The original party consisted of myself and the other 2 brits from the swastika. We were later joined by an Australian couple….After hearing so much about the camel treks and then seeing how many tourists there were in Jaisalmer doing them I had mixed anticipations on the trek. Had heard some pretty bad reviews in town. ….

We got a jeep for about half an hour and then met our guide and 3 camels by the road side…..strapped the equipment onto the back of the saddles ( including Toms guitar for proper campfire sing-along) and then mounted up….Camels truly are strange creatures… they walk with an real up and down motion causing much irritation to the inexperienced rider in the leg/thigh/groin area…..we walked for about 2 hours through the desert scrub and then stopped for lunch…by this time my groin was feeling pretty painful… ate a meal prepared by our guides and then sat around for another 2 hours until the heat of the day had subsided….after another hour of trekking we reached the sand dunes where we would camp for the night….fairplay there weren’t too many other tourists around, but there were plenty of tourist hustlers there even though….we ended up buying a cold beer off a “Kingfisher Walla” ( felt a really British thing to do, and it kind of ruined the illusion of the dunes, but hell it was hot out ) . Also paid a family of locals a small fee to record them playing and singing a traditional song….was beginning to build up a fairly decent audio scrapbook by this point.

After sunset we ate and sat round the campfire for the evening drinking whisky and playing guitar…the local guides only wanted to hear Bob Marley esp. Buffalo Soldier……luckily I remembered a few Marley songs from my revision session in Turkey earlier in the year, and managed to work out a makeshift version of Buffalo soldier on the spot that seemed to go down well with the audience….

By 9pm all of our party were in bed apart from me. I was determined to keep the fire going and play music under the stars ( that were impressive btw but no better than those you can see in rural Britain in summer). After gathering some wood ( dry bits of bush ) and trying to coax the fire back to life with no success ( really hard to get air into a fire built on sand ) I gave up and went to bed on a set of blankets laid on the sand. After a few minutes our camp was over run by a herd of goats…hilarious… I was asleep by the time they left…

Next thing I knew it was 4am and really cold….the moon had risen and the dunes were silent and illuminated brightly in moonlight giving them a real lunar feel. Got up to use the toilet and then wandered around for a bit on the moonlit sand A very surreal feeling possibly the highlight of the whole trek for me. The next morning we warmed up and rode for another 2 hours through landscape similar to southern Spain. At 11.30 stopped for lunch and then got a jeep back to town not long after, as the other guys had a train to catch to Delhi.

I think about a day and a half was enough time to spend on a camel and about all the chaffing and groin stretching I was up for…the dunes themselves weren’t that impressive and the stars weren’t as mind blowing as I had heard ( probably needed to be further from civilisation and on a moonless night to really get the best view)…however it was great to get into the countryside for a few days and cheap enough for the trip. My lasting feeling about the camel trek though was that I should have done one when I was in Sinai in the proper desert…

That afternoon said goodbye to my travelling companions for the week ( after copying all the e-book lonely planets I would need for the rest of the trip from Steve’s computer…thanks man !). This was actually the longest I had hung out with anyone since I started travelling in May so felt a bit strange afterwards, although I was looking forward to meeting some new faces ( hopefully female ) in the coming days. That night did the regular Jaislamer evening routine. ( fort view till sunset, then food and lassie shop before hotel lock in at 11pm) Had an early night as was starting to get a cold……. oh well at least I felt healthy for more than a day in a row this time………

Overall loved being in Jaisalmer even if the camel trek didn’t live up to expectations, was an awesome place to hangout for a week with some interesting company and helpful locals, and the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in in India!, Despite the somewhat off putting name the staff at Hotel Swastika were totally straight with you and non invasive, but happy to be of service upon request, would totally recommend anyone on a budget to stay there ( also check out Monica restaurant the place with the great curry)…… Was also cool to have access to a guitar again, need to pick up my own soon ,……... Next and final stop in Rajasthan, the lake city of Udaipur………

Pushkar / Jodhpur 19-23rd November 2010

Pushkar Photos









The queue at Ajmer rail station







Jodhpur Photos







The deluxe bus to Pushkar was smooth enough, apart from the guy across the isle from me constantly spitting on the floor. When I got to Ajmer seemed like there wasn’t much to do so jumped straight onto the local bus to Pushkar. Got chatting to a local guy who worked at a hotel in town and arranged to look at a cheap room when we got there. The Pushkar camel fair was about to reach its climax and I had been warned to expect hugely inflated accommodation prices. The room itself was better than the one in Jaipur so I booked it for a couple of nights. On first impression Pushkar seemed like a pretty chilled out place, from what I could make out in the dark it was in a nice location, built around a lake with a few temple mounted hills surrounding.


Being a holy city alcohol was meant to be banned but the guy who sorted me out with the room instantly offered to get me a beer, I gave him some money and he came back 20minutes later with a large bottle of strong strength larger and some whisky for himself ( I think the money I passed over was paying for both of us to drink ). We drank on the roof terrace for a while and then I went down to the festival site or “Mela”. It was pretty much like Glastonbury after the bands finish, lots of people, loud music from sound systems + stalls selling overpriced goods and food. Only there was no booze and all the music was Hindi. I walked by a Ferris wheel that looked like possibly the most dangerous thing I would see in India. Absolutely no safety precautions looked like one rusty bolt was holding the whole thing together….not for me thanks.

After a hour or so of walking around and talking to the locals ( every one wants to know your name + where your from ) went back to the hotel and crashed out around 2am.
The next morning the drawbacks of my room became painfully obvious….the windows had no glass meaning that all the noise of motorcycles and people talking ( shouting by Uk standards) in the street woke me up. Also there was a pungent smell of burning garbage filling the room, think someone was warming their chai stove below my room. I haven’t had a proper nights sleep since I got to Rajasthan. There is usually noise of the hotel staff talking/shouting loudly until the early morning in the corridors, and then again early in the morning + traffic sound if your near the front of the building. Not sure if the Rajasthani population are generally loud, but don’t remember it being this noisily last time I was in India.

After a while got up, the sun was out and the streets were fairly busy with people, decided to head straight up to the Mela ground to have a look at the camels that had enticed me to the festival. After getting to the area the camels were kept it was pretty obvious that most of the livestock was already gone….turns out most of the camel trading was at the beginning of the week…still saw some pretty impressive beasts though. Like most festivals the Pushkar fair had attracted all manner of traders and scam artists from outside of town. Was approached by many a gypsy woman trying to entice me into a private dancing session via asking me to take their picture and buy them a cup of chai in exchange. I bought the first one a tea for free and had a chat while constantly declining her offers of a free henna tattoo. Still was interesting talk to people from a totally different background.

After getting tired of offers for a camel ride ( worse than at the Pyramids ) decided to climb to the top of one of the nearby hills to visit a Hindu temple and get a view of the town from above. After a few wrong turns eventually made it to the base of the path up the hill….got chatting to a couple of local cops about cricket on the way up, a common conversation when talking to Indians who don’t speak great English. ( as football is in most other countries) I managed to bluff my minimal knowledge about test cricket into a decent enough conversation then continued up….passed a lot of pilgrims on the way everyone was super friendly. At the top the view was spectacular on one side the town and the lake with surrounding hills, and on the other the Rajasthani desert stretching out to the horizon. Stayed up there for a hour or so talking to people and watching a monkey trying to steal food from a families picnic.

Afterwards had a quick look at the Ghats ( Hindu devotional platforms) surrounding the lake in town( quick as it is quite common to be approached by an unscrupulous priest offing to do a blessing or “puja” and then demanding extortionate rates for the service after ).

Then I wandered into town and got some street food on a plate made of dried leaves. After finishing looked round for a bin ( a rare sight in India) and not finding one decided I would do as in Rome and litter. Unfortunately the place next to a tree I decided to put my used plate down to turned out to be a mini shrine to Shiva. I was instantly under extreme verbal attack from an old woman. Did my best to apologise and ease the situation, but ended up having to leave the scene post haste…typical that my first act of littering would insult a religion…from now on I’ll find a ready formed garbage pile in the streets to add to.

Spent the rest of the day walking the streets to the point of exhaustion, there seemed to be more and more people arriving at the fair, until by late afternoon the streets with choka block full. Its estimated that at its height 200,000 people are at the festival, one and a half times the amount at Glastonbury in a smaller area. Went up to the temple on the hill opposite the one I had gone up earlier to watch the sunset ….chatted with some other travellers who were up there….a really spectacular view again. That night watched an impressive fireworks display from the hotel roof and then wandered the streets again. The town was now at bursting point with party going Indians…got the impression I wasn’t the only one in town sneaking a drink in…..got lost for about an hour on the way home and finally made it back to the hotel at midnight….by the sound coming from outside of my room all night at that point the party had just started …..

Next morning got the bus back to Ajmer to catch a train to Jodhpur (the city the riding trousers are name after). The streets were still packed with people as even more came to town for the final day of the fair. Had to walk about 2km with my pack while refusing many an offer to have it carried on a baggage cart. I got to the bus stop to find a few busses that were already jammed packed full and a few empty ones…..Went to a empty one to try and avoid the crowd…..I asked the driver loudly if the bus was going to Ajmer and as soon as he replied “yes” I was instantly engulfed in a crowd of locals who pushed me out of the way of the door and then began pushing each other. It was every man for himself, women and children being pushed out of the way while the men tried to get their own families on. A bunch of people simply bypassed the Queue ( for lack of a better term) and climbed in through the windows…eventually got on and was offered a seat…the funny thing is after all the commotion there were enough seats for nearly everyone to sit down. Ended up giving mine to an old woman and standing for the 25minutes ride anyway…..at the station in Ajmer the rush to get off the bus was just as intense….crazy but good fun!.

I walked the 2km from the bus station to train station surrounded by another entourage of local youths who had been on the bus from the camel fair . They all had replica bow staffs from the festival and declared themselves my personal body guard…hilarious we marched the streets at pace in formation as was running late for the train…. fairplay they got me to the station and showed me where the ticket office was……….my heart sank to see the ticket office itself was rammed full of people ( see photo)…had to queue for 40 minutes to get my ticket and only got it with 5minutes to spare before the only train to Jodhpur left. Seeing a tourist at the front of the queue about 3 people behind me tried to jump in front when I started buying my ticket, I got pissed off and shouted at one of them to back off and the ticket seller started going mental at them drawing the attention of club wielding policeman who were supervising the queue…was left in peace to make my purchase… my ticket was second class no seat reservation……5.5 hours on a train for less than a pound …cheap even by Indian standards British rail take note……well having said that did spent the first hour of the journey standing near the toilet block surrounded by other people but at least I had leg room…... After a few stops someone who was lying on a luggage shelf offered me to share half the space so I spent the next 4 hours sat next to my pack on the edge of the shelf above a packed bench of locals with my head ducked under the ceiling…..not the most comfortable but still better than next to the toilet and “that” smell. The dude who gave me the seat didn’t speak good English but insisted on feeding me. I shared dinner with him and his friend…and talked about test cricket……For every person in the country that is trying to befriend you for your spending power there seem to be ten who are completely genuine like this guy……wish I could have made better conversation, will have to work on my Indian language skills (and cricket knowledge for that matter )


Got to Jodhpur station at 8pm and met a guy from England called Tom who was travelling round with a guitar. We were both on a similar budget so got a rickshaw into the old city and found a cheap room after doing an hour or so of bargaining around various guest houses. Was cool to meet another guitarist ( and have access to a guitar after a few weeks,) and Fairplay the guy could play some awesome alt tuning blues slide stuff… gave me some good ideas to try develop my style. Ate on the roof top and had a couple of beers. The fort in Jodhpur was massive and dominated the hill above the hotel. On first impression the city seemed way more chilled that Jaipour.

The next morning sorted myself a single room out for a couple of nights in the same hotel then went up to the fort. It was raining by the time we got there and not cheap to enter , 300hundered rupees ( still only £4.50 mind , ) but the view from the battlements was awesome. Jodhpur is called the “blue city” as most of the buildings in the old city are painted blue.( See photo for image that doesn’t do view justice ) Afterwards checked out a bit more of the city by exploring the winding streets but the rain was heavy enough by this point to give them that special “Download festival feel” so spent most of the afternoon in the guest house patio using the free wifi ( a real rarity in India).

That evening got chatting to a kiwi and Irish guy over dinner and then retired fairly early…..not long after getting to my room began to feel really ill. Nausea and stomach pains…..had been wondering how long I could last with out getting sick…..my guess was around a week and a half before I came and proved to be bang on…..had a rough night but felt a lot better in the morning.

Decided to have a recovery/admin day as it was still raining and I would have another chance to see the city on the way back from the desert. Spent most of the afternoon sorting out bits and bobs online for the south Asia leg of the journey in the new year. That evening decided to go to a nice restaurant and spent double my usual dinner budget in hopes it would help my stomach. ( still came to less than a fiver ) Never thought I would get tired of cheaply priced curry, but the lack of anything else on the menu ( apart from Chinese or badly prepared pizza/spaghetti) was starting to bring me down…still the food in the Nirvana restaurant tasted fresh and the dinning area was clean…after dinner wandered the streets for a bit and then came back to the hotel to rehydrate myself . (Incidentally I highly recommend dissolvable rehydration salts as a hangover cure, you can get them from most chemists/pharmacists. Trust me they will work miracles if you drink before bed or first thing in the morning after a heavy session )

Decided to have an early night, get a bus to Jaisalmer in northern Rajasthan the following morning and then try and find a decent camel trek once the weather had improved.

Jaipur 16-19th November 2010

The train ride during the day was uncomfortable at best after a night of broken sleep on the sleeper berth ( see photo) . The shout of “Chai..chai ….CHAI “ from the tea sellers at every given opportunity hadn’t helped + weird gangs of transvestite train dwellers that clapped their hand loudly at people who didn’t give them money, didn’t make for a peaceful nights sleep…..creepy!. There was an English couple in the berths next to me to talk to and plenty of Indian kids wanted to practice their English so managed to pass the time. Finally got into town at 7.30pm. Managed to find a cheap room in the banipark area of the city after looking at a few different options with my tout provided rickshaw driver. The room was pretty dirty but had an en-suite bathroom and a TV. Ordered a curry through room service for about 80p and spent the evening watching bollywood movies and cricket highlights.

Next morning awoke at 10am to the sound of heavy rain to find the room in darkness, turned out the my window only lead onto a large ventilation shaft, oh well you win some you lose some. Not long after turning on the lights there was a power cut that left me in total darkness again. Got my stuff together using the light of my mobile and went to reception to see what was occurring.

The rain was heavy…chucking it down, after trying to wait it out for an hour to no avail decided to walk towards the old city to do some soggy sight seeing. Jaipur is the capital of the state of Rajasthan . A busy, bustling Indian city, the entire walled old city area was painted pink in the 18 hundreds giving the nickname of “the pink city”. After a few minutes of walking in the rain along streets that looked like the final day of Glastonbury 2007, a car pulled up. Got chatting to the Indian driver who had lived in England. He offered me a lift to the old city gates, seemed honest enough so I jumped in. Turned out I had been going in the wrong direction and the old city was way further away than it looked on the map. So it was good fortune to get a lift from a well meaning stranger, and something that happens very rarely in the UK. Got dropped just down the road from the walls of the old city….it was still raining hard..

Within 2 minutes of walking through the gates I was invited for chai by a very pushy dude who said he just wanted to practice his English.. Went for a tea and then there was an invite for dinner to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid…I politely declined this, was probably a genuine offer but I wanted to explore the city on my own terms during the day without having to accommodate for any one else.

I walked towards the city palace and got chatting to an older guy called Shankar who was a musician. He invited me to his house for chai and a chillum. Seemed like a trustworthy guy so went along and had a good chat about music of all kinds, listened to him playing the flute and then went to the local Hindu temple to hear some devotional music. I loved India classical and religious music and the music in the Govind temple was awesome. Later on did some more exploring of the city and had more Chai with Shankar ( by this point I got the impression he was angling towards me marrying his 16 year old daughter, I made it pretty clear I was planning to stay single for the time being ) .Later I went with him to a Hindu offering ceremony where I was handed 51 rupees by the priest ( a bit awkward but I took the money so as not to offend, usually you get asked to pay money a these kinds of things and often priests will scam tourists by doing a puja or blessing and then asking for extortionate rates of money for the service. For good Karma I would disperse the 51 rupees over the next couple of days to the needy round the city ) .

Got totally lost on the way back home later that evening but eventually managed to find my hotel by blind luck after a 2 hour walk marathon through mud containing good knows how many germs and chemicals, ah well at least it had stopped raining…. The sight and smells of the city, both good and bad, had been and assault on my senses. Crashed out early, it had been a long but fulfilling day.

Next day went back to Shankar’s place and was introduced to his “student” who worked in The Jewel import/export business ( hmm suspicious….was well aware of how travellers have been ripped of by Indian jewellers, saw it first hand on my last trip here…)

Was then offered a free ride on a motorcycle to see the Hanuman ( monkey God ) temple on the far side of town. In India there is usually some kind of catch for any offer but I decided to accept the ride on good faith and see what happened after.

The dude who was driving me there was nice enough and the motorcycle ride through the backstreet of the town at pace was good fun. The temple itself was on a hill overlooking the city and the view from the top was incredible…..When your inside the city amongst the dirt and traffic its hard to see what the attraction of Jaipur is, ..but viewed from above in context of its setting ( a dry lake bed surrounded by mountains) it has a magical quality…..

After touring the temple complex and drinking more chai…I asked about going to the hill fort on the other side of town was told I needed to go back to town to talk to the boss and then we could get a car up to the fort. Had the impression I was going to end up in a jewellery store and I wasn’t wrong….20 minutes later I found myself sat opposite Mr Shankar’s “student” in a small office at the back of a jewel merchants.

Being aware that I was going to be made a proposal of some kind, (e.g. getting jewels sent to me to avoid export tax, buying travellers cheques for money laundering etc) I decided to move first, and casually brought up in conversation over tea that last time I was in India one of my friends had been ripped off by jewellers, also mentioned I had worked in Finance and said I wasn’t interested in getting involved in exporting as it was too much hassle…..the guy seemed to get the impression I knew what the meeting was really going to lead to and after tea I was told I could hire my own rickshaw to get to the fort, the offer of free transport having now been subtly revoked. Was happy enough with this and thanked them for providing me with a free ride to the temple….with a bit of foresight had managed to work the situation to my advantage and get a free tour……..

The walk to the fort was cool, through winding backstreets then up a steep zigzagging path to the top of the hill. Ended up with an entourage of local kids following me up Rockey style, eventually they started to get really annoying though, managed to lose them at the fort gates….another impressive view of the city was to be seen from inside, stayed until sunset and then hitched a ride back into town on a motorcycle with some more well meaning locals. Spent the rest of the evening wandering the town and eating curry.

The next afternoon got a deluxe bus to Ajmer on the way to the last 2 days of the famous Pushkar camel festival.

Jaipur was a good experience and a lesson that, despite finding yourself in the odd jewellery shop now and then, its good to engage with the locals in order to see the Indian culture first hand. Think two days there was enough though the busy streets were starting to do my head in like in Cairo…hopefully Pushkar would offer something different.

Mumbai 12-15th November 2010 ( the story of my Bollywood acting debut)

The difference between easy jet and British Airways is as vast as the difference between Owen Phillips and the Pope. With free wine and in seat movies the 9 hour flight flew by. Took me about 1.5 hours to get through immigration at Mumbai Airport . The local time was 2am by that point. Not wanting to piss around trying to find a cheap hotel at that time, I booked a room for about 20quid ( as cheap as I could barter them down ) through the airport information office. The weather was nothing like London. The humidity in India is killer, it isn’t as hot as the middle east, but much more uncomfortable because of the constant film of moisture that clings to your skin.

Once I got to the hotel it was obvious it wasn’t worth 20quid a night, but having been to India before I was expecting to get ripped off for the first few days before I found my feet, I gave a 10 rupee tip to the bell boy about 20p) which he seemed really happy about, later on he would help me to get in touch with room service, when I didn’t tip him again he gave me a look like I just assaulted his mother until I eventually had to shut the door in his face ….no more pleasantries….yep back in India again alright…remember It took me a while to get used to the cultural differences last time I was here , at least I had a running start this time…..

Next morning got a taxi to the centre of the city and then tried to get straight onto a train to Rajasthan an area in the north west of the country ( Mumbai is expensive relative to other parts India). I was told that the next train wasn’t until Monday ( 2days away). I booked a ticket on the night train at around 5 pounds for a 22 hour journey and then begrudgingly went into the city to try find a cheap room,….

It was getting hot by this point and the streets were busy ( though not as bad as Cairo ) I walked for about 30mins with my pack on to get to a tourist office that was shut on Saturday afternoons…curses!!**@@!!….. I then walked back to the train station again only to find that the area I was looking for was back near the tourist office that I had just come from… jetlag and maps aren’t a good combination…..drank some water and then headed back again towards the Colaba area of the city…was feeling weak and tired by now…..

I eventually ended up getting a dorm room in a hostel after looking at a few singles around Colaba that weren’t worth the extra money. While I was walking around I was stopped in the street by a casting agent from a Bollywood soap who was looking to cast foreigners as extras for an episode set in England…A friend from Canada had done it a few years back and said it was a laugh + the pay was 500 rupees and free food all day …

“where do I sign up fella?!!!”

That night went out for dinner +drinks with some other travellers in the hostel ….All super cool people with good advise for India…..the food was cheap and really good, about £1.50 for your fill of curry. Afterwards we went to the five star hotel The Taj Gateway to see if we could get a drink… the bar was a bit shit so we ended up just hanging out in the air conditioned lobby ( see photo) and using the restrooms. Barak Obama had stayed there 5 days beforehand and there seemed to be a few millionaires wandering around. Eventually security asked us to leave. There was a heavy security presence around the hotel, bag scans on way in etc…this wasn’t surprising, the Taj was one of the hotels that was attacked by Moslem extremists in 2008 resulting in a 2 day siege….was really surreal thinking about what had happened there……

Went to bed at 1am and then got up at 6.30 for my 7am-7pm shift on the film set…..time to shine! The meeting point was just up the road…was met by an Indian guy in fashionable clothing who asked me if I was going to Bollywood…in all there were about 17 of us as extras…..we all piled into cars to take us to the set….Imagining I was going to a huge film lot with a shining “BOLLYWOOD” sign above the gates, I was a bit disappointed when we pulled up 2 minutes later at the local university buildings…..

The first 3 hours involved sitting around in an AC cabin and chatting to other travellers…had free food and drinks and exchanged travel stories ..the group consisted of me an English guy an Italian, 3 fins, 2 Danes, 5 Aussies, 3 Chinese girls, a French girl and a Dutch girl and 2 Germans.

After a while we were told that the soap was called “Kismet” or “Destiny” and story was of an Indian guy called Aditerage who was studying in England in 1966...he was in Love with an English girl called “Catherine Bennett “ and had to defeat the local hard man “Tommy (TJ) Jones” in a boxing match to win her love…..the script was hilariously bad and it soon became clear that some of us would have speaking lines in it too….

“hmmmm, I don’t remember discussing this with my agent when the fee was set”

Next step was costumes, a very pushy Indian girl in charge of wardrobe proceeded to give us the most horrendously bad fitting and non 60’s looking outfits ever…the girls weren’t happy at all with their dress selections, while the guys were finding it hilarious….initially I was given an extremely tight shirt and waistcoat and a pair of trousers that didn’t fit…bearing in mind that I would be wearing this in the heat all day I told the wardrobe girls half jokingly that we needed a “radical rethink on my image“…thankfully they went along with me, and I ended up with a loose fitting pair of slacks and a polo shirt that was too small for me…looked more like someone from “this is England 86” than a sixties college student……

Others weren’t so fortunate…al lot of people had heavy sweaters and some even winter coats on…the first scene involved standing around in the background of the building gardens while a few lines were read…It was hot as hell already but then a huge reflective screen was set up to reflect the sunlight onto the actors….poor bastard must have been sweltering, luckily I was moved into the shade halfway through the scene..

After lunch I was handed a script and told that I would be reading lines with a Finish guy alongside an Indian extra and one of the regular actors on the soap….

Hilarious the Finish guys English wasn’t the best , but they insisted on using him even though he tried to point out on many occasions that lots of other extras could speak better English….

The Scene went like this.

Guy 1: ( in heavy finish accent ) Did you hear who Aditerage is up against in the boxing?…..its TJ!”

Guy 2 : ( Indian extra/wannabe star in Indian/American accent) “Tommy Jones!”

Guy 3 : (ME ) “ then he’s had it,….. TJ will kill him”

We all then laugh unconvincingly….

Mamood ( regular actor on soap delivered in typical over dramatised style)

“its not funny guys ( pause for effect then serious face) ..it could be dangerous”

The whole thing felt like something right out of Dark Place, I tried to deliver my line in the style of Sanchez…the director really didn’t seem to care how bad the acting was although the difference between us and the professional actor was blatantly obvious…..after 4 takes we were done

Next I had to walk up and down a path in the back of another scene with a Dutch girl over and over and over again…by this time I was shattered….. I thought we were through for the day when I was handed another script and given more lines to say alongside the light skinned and very attractive Indian girl Playing “Catherine Bennett “ .By this point in the script the hero of the story had developed a gambling habit after being rejected by said Ms. Bennett

My line was “ I don’t know about that, but he won over one hundred pounds”

This scene also involved an Italian whose English was worse than the Fins and German guy who sounded so much like Arnold Swartzeneger when he delivered his line ( “ he’s become a gambler”) that I had to fight hard not to burst into laughter and ruin the take…

The Indian girl who played Catherine got 2000 rupees ( 40 pounds) for saying 1 line over 2 takes and then left the set as fast as she had arrived in a mood …2000 rupees for that????…. I need to fire my agent!!

At the end of the day we all had to record our lines again vocally with the sound recordist so they could overdub them in the final edit…… (no idea why, but during the overdubbing a flock of crows were making a huge racket in the trees so maybe they wanted to drown out the traffic noises in the background …)

I have to see this show now!, will be so weird hearing my voice overdubbed on my own face…apparently the programme will be out in December, hopefully before I leave India.

After collecting my wages went out for a few beers with some of the other extras, ended up on a really cool little bar that had the best music selection I have ever heard in a pub. Had a good chat about Spurs, bands and the Big Lebowski with the English dude and a good discussion about Anthropology with some of the girls who were studying for a semester in Mumbai…so far the other travellers I have met in India have all been really chilled and likeminded people….

Went to bed rather drunk after banging on the locked door of the hostel for a few minutes…Check out next morning was at 9am……felt pretty rotten, checked my bag in the luggage room and spent a couple of hours down by the Gateway to India (over rated monument from colonial times ) trying to avoid touts and shake off a headache…after a few hours the sun came out and I was feeling better. I wandered the streets of Mumbai quite happily…was really enjoying being in India…went to the book sellers corner on Mahatma Gandhi road. A really cool little book market right on the sidewalk, .

I’m not sure if its just cause the US president had been there the week before, but the city seemed a lot cleaner and developed than last time I was there…communications technology has definitely changed things too, nearly everyone has a mobile phone.

That evening I got the local train to Bandra terminus, an hour north of the city centre ( but still in Mumbai ), to get my night train to Jaipour in Rajasthan . The local train gave me a chance to see the slums of Mumbai…certainly dirty and ram shackle but they looked permanent and seemed to be thriving in many ways .Apparently there are millionaires living in some of the slums who have got rich through the localised cottage industries that service the slum dwellers…India seems to be pulling itself up by its bootlaces…….

Got on the train at 8pm, it had started raining outside and I was desperate to sleep…luckily had a top berth so climbed straight up and went to sleep…22 hours later I would reach Jaipour….

After not wanting to stay in Mumbai for longer than necessary, I ended up having a great time. Met some really cool people, and the day on the television set was one of the funest and funniest things I have done in ages…may try and pick up a couple more days work when I head back south towards Goa at the end of the month …you can easily live off 500 rupees a day in Mumbai…..but first its time to explore Rajasthan and hopefully find a camel trek into the dessert to see the stars at night …..